Theory of City Form

by Julian Beinart

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Description

This collection includes twenty-six lectures, including presentation of slides in each session, which cover proposed theories of city form, urban case studies, and a latter focus on modernism. The last lecture summarizes major themes of the entire course.

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VideoLec 1: Introduction

This lecture covers the motivations for the course, an introduction of urban history, and the role of cities throughout human history. The professor gives a brief explanation of each topic that is to be covered in the course.

This lecture focuses on the cosmic model of the city, and the city as a consciousness and expression of religion. Some examples discussed include Solomon's temple, Eliade's depiction of the archaic man, feng shui, Athens, and barays.

This lecture covers the machine model, characterized by visual economy, decentralization, and urbanizing at low costs. Comparisons are drawn between the cosmic model, with examples including colonial expansion in Greece, Roman cities, and French bastides.

This lecture covers the organic model and on appropriateness of size and boundaries as dictated by nature, homeostasis, optimal size, population, value of land, and nonorthogonal forms. A case study on the Tennessee Valley Authority is also presented.

The lecture starts with Kevin Lynch's The Image of a City, defining image as identity, structure, and meaning. Other topics include the reduction of complexity, the city as a set of agreements, correlation and movement pattern, and the space syntax.

This lecture discusses changes associated with the Industrial Revolution, with a focus on London. Topics include the migration from rural to urban, the Inclosure Acts, the idea that land is available to the population, and rationalized labor.

This lecture focuses on London during the Advent of Modernism. Major changes and events including welfare, city planning, the Great Fire and Plague, sewage and transportation systems, creation of estates and gardens, and deficit spending are discussed.

This lecture focuses on the development of Paris, and Haussmann's rebuilding of the city, with an emphasis on the emergent business and management model. Notions of play, distribution, the role of streets and walls, and psychogeography are discussed.

This lecture begins with a study of Vienna and its wall system, the middle-class. economy, Ringstrasse, and Red Vienna. The latter part of the lecture focuses on Barcelona, and its extension constructed around the city's center.

This lecture introduces Chicago and the primacy of the individual. Among the city's features discussed are the Chicago World's Fair, Burgess model of concentric universe, the city as economic engine, and private sector versus communal environment.

This lecture explores the enlightment of people as individuals, separation of work and home, and the organization of complex space. Panopticism, implied meanings in façade, spatial comparison, and transformability are illustrated through case studies.

This lecture starts with defining the goals of utopia, and its address of the boundary problems in society. Example communities are discussed to analyze why such communities fail. The works of three architects are discussed with the lens of social reform.

This lecture focuses on the construction of new towns in the UK and Russia. Technology, population, land economy and form, population, the effect of socialization, and the authority of the state serve as measures for comparison.

This lecture focuses on the relationship between the way a city is made and its form. Factors such as educating citizens, trade-offs with public, incentives of the public sector, and power systems within a city are presented alongside case studies.

The lecture starts with the relationship between social structure and spatial structure. Jerusalem is taken as a case study that frames ideas about religion as a democratic phenomenon, the emergence of the synagogue, and the notion of a shared capital.

This lecture features a case study of Johannesburg and the stages of South African urbanism. Mining camps, the informal city, tribal communities, decorative systems, and fluid communities are discussed in context of apartheid and the segregated society.

This lecture begins with a discussion of borders between legal and illegal as well as upper and lower classes, with an example of the Mexican-American border. Colonization and case studies are discussed, along with spatial techniques and power displays.

This lecture identifies the premises for modern and post-modern urbanism. Science, the breaking of life into categories, the modern spirit, universal identity, the corporate client, and the self-image of the architect are presented as major influences.

This lecture picks up with Team 10, temporality and flexibility in cities, and the impact of geometry. The anticlassical idea of public organization by an underlying DNA, and large-scale temporary environments are presented alongside case studies.

This lecture presents interpretations of how to deal with the past, which refers to both history and memory. The views of Aldo Rossi and Léon Krier are offered for debate, as well as the use of architecture in museums, memorials, and as a pneumonic.

This lecture continues the discussion on urbanism and threats to urbanism. Change in climate, social equity, the move away from the central city, the effect of urban development on the environment, and risks to the planet are key points of discussion.

This lecture focuses on urbanism in the Global South. Discussion targets how to deal with population growth, the residue of colonialism, the tradition of tribalism, and urban poverty on a mass scale. Chandigarh and Diadema are taken as case studies.

This lecture presents the entirety of the course content to create connections among the previous 25 lectures. Preceding is a discourse on theory being supported by facts, the importance of details, and the existent relationship between space and society.

In this video, Professor Julian Beinart discusses the need to recognize the complexities of cities and urbanism through a personal anecdote during a lecture from the MIT course 4.241J/11.330J Theory of City Form.